Reply #9: from their debate in Hartford, two years ago

[Gabi Hayes]

May 15, 2004
By TARA WEISS, Courant Staff Writer

The evening was titled "A Conversation Between Al Franken & Ann Coulter," but it was more a verbal schoolyard brawl, where even the teacher attempting to break it up got a bloody nose.

"I'm going to try to keep it fair, keep it moving, and I should have brought my body armor," said commentator Steve Roberts, moderator of the Connecticut Forum at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts on Friday.

It would have come in handy. Neither Roberts nor the audience were spared the punches thrown by the acid-tongued conservative commentator Coulter and comedian-turned-liberal talk radio host Franken.

Although they're frequent critics of each other - Franken even devotes several chapters of his recent book to bad-mouthing Coulter - it was the first time the political foes appeared together on the same program.

The evening's tone was set early when Roberts asked which political figure each would most like to be. Coulter said she would answer with who she believed had the most fun. Her response: Sen. Joseph McCarthy, because he got to remove "communist spies from the government."

That elicited loud booing from the sold-out audience, that made its political leanings obvious with frequent applause and jeers.

Franken's response: "Hitler."

The audience roared with laughter.

Roberts, a former New York Times reporter who is married to National Public Radio political correspondent Cokie Roberts, asked relevant questions of the two, but didn't always get relevant responses.

Roberts: Do you think the Bush administration did anything wrong in regard to the war in Iraq?

Coulter: "When we won the war in a few weeks with amazingly few casualties, all the liberals had to complain about was some broken pottery. Any college student who was ever forced to gaze at Mesopotamian pottery was relieved."

Roberts: The Massachusetts Supreme Court voted to allow gays to marry there. How do you feel about gay marriage?

Coulter: "Have they read the Constitution? It's a short document. It doesn't say anything in there about gay marriage. We need to get them looking for Osama Bin Laden, because if they can find gay marriage in that document, maybe they can find him."

The audience reacted audibly, as it did many times. (In some cases the outbursts prompted Coulter to address the crowd which she seemed to view as mainly liberal. Go ahead and continue to be rude, she said, "it keeps getting Republicans elected.")

http://www.alfrankenweb.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=132593#132593